Technical Field
This disclosure relates to portable musical note generating systems, methods and computer software programs and, more particularly, to a musical note generating system, method and computer software program for assisting a user to simulate musical notes from an instrument without actually playing the instrument.
Prior Art
Known in the art are electronic percussion musical instruments which have music playing manipulation elements in the form of a pad (i.e. playing pads) to be struck by the player and generate electronic musical tones resembling drum sounds and cymbal sounds when the pads are struck, such as disclosed in registered Japanese patent publications No. 3,835,163 and No. 3,554,770. Such electronic percussion instruments having pad-type music playing manipulation elements are capable of generating individual musical tones or a short phrase of musical tones when the pads are struck by the sticks or hands or other body parts.
Such known electronic percussion instruments are provided with a plurality of playing pads, which are usually arranged in close positions to each other. Such an arrangement, however, has a drawback that the player may erroneously strike a wrong pad other than the intended pad in playing the instrument. Especially in the case of a desktop-type electronic percussion instrument in a small size having a plurality of playing pads wherein each of the pads has accordingly a small striking area, there will be a high possibility of striking a wrong pad adjacent to the intended pad.
Further, in a conventional electronic percussion instrument having a plurality of playing pads, the musical tones to be generated in response to the strikes on the pads are set individually pad by pad. The operation of setting the musical tones to the individual pads, however, will be troublesome and time-consuming where there are so many pads, and the work for setting various items during the music playing manipulation will accordingly very troublesome, which will therefore deteriorate the easiness and the convenience of a desktop-type electronic percussion instrument which is designed for the player to enjoy simple plays on the percussion instrument.
Further, the conventional models of electronic percussion instruments are mostly of the type which has striking pads in the form of randomly placed pads, and accordingly the striking operations against the pads are limited to a basic manner of striking the pad face with the tip ends of the beating sticks. On such conventional electronic percussion instruments, the player cannot manipulate the instrument in manners such as to mimic a guitar or a piano. Thus, the conventional models do not meet the need for a wide range of manipulating operations.
Further, the conventional electronic percussion instruments have a plurality of pads which are individually arranged independent from each other, and accordingly require a basic playing manner of handling each of the pads as a separate manipulation zone. Thus, the conventional models are not intended for a wide variety of playing manners by effectively utilizing the plurality of pads, such as by combining plural pads into an enlarged manipulation area to mimic performances on a variety of percussion instruments.
Furthermore, conventional electronic percussion instruments suffer from the disadvantage of the being limited to the number of keys present which decide the number of musical melodies that can be generated with the specific keys, being too complicated for a layman without any knowledge to play music. A direct consequence of this limitation is that the user needs to have proper training and guidance before he/she can play the electronic percussion instrument like a piano or a guitar, which have numerous keys/strings mapped to a particular sound. Another significant disadvantage is the latency period present while using MIDI technology to generate sound. This presents as an undesirable lag in the musical melody which would be quite distinguishable to one who appreciates musical melody.
Accordingly, a need remains for method, system and computer software program for providing a hand-like control surface as a MIDI controller that sends MIDI Messages and enables a user to easily play a guitar or a piano without having to learn cumbersome and tedious finger movements typically required for such devices.